Lubricator-pump



W. J. SCHLACKS.

v LUBRICATOR PUMP. APPLICATION FILED AUG.3I, 1918.

1,384,098., r PatentedJuly 12,1921.

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LUBRICATOR-PUMP.

Specification of Letters Patent.

Patented July 12, 1921.

Application filed August 31, 1918. Serial No. 252,229.

To all whom it may concern:

Be it known that I, WILLIAM J. SCHLAOKS, a citizen of the United States, residin at Chicago, in the county of Cook and tate of Illinois, have invented certain new and useful Improvements in Lubricator-Pumps; and I do hereby declare the following to be a full, clear, and exact description of the invention, such as will enable others skilled in the art to which it appertains to make and use the same.

My present invention relates to force feed lubricators, and more particularly to force feed lubricators especially adapted for use in connection with locomotives or with that type of lubricator wherein reciprocating pump plungers are employed to deliver the oil, under pressure, to the valves, cylinders, or other parts to be lubricated.

My main object is to attain, by simple and eflicient means, a constant or continuous pumping action or delivery of the oil, tlmed" in respect to the running speed of the locomotive or engine. I obtain a constant feed of oil, by more complicated means, in my prior Patent 1,145,515, of date, July 6, 1915, by the arrangement of reciprocating pump plungers and connections, whereby the action of the two pumps is alternated so that the one pump plunger will operate while the other is making its return stroke.

In my present improved pump, by the use of a cam having an approximately 360 degree increase, combined with a cooperating cam-actuated, pump-actuating slide, I render the action of a single pump substantially continuous, to wit, continuous except for an exceedingly small interval of time required to impart a return movement to the pump plunger by the action of a retracting spring, or the like.

-The invention is illustrated in the accompanying drawings wherein like characters indicate like parts throughout the several views.

Referring to the drawings;

Figure 1 is a side elevation showing a lubricator pump embodying my invention, some parts being broken away and some parts being sectioned;

Fig. 2 is a fragmentary section taken ap-" proximately on "the line 22 of Fig. 1; and

Fig. 3 is a vertical section taken-approximately on the line 3-3 of Fig. 1, some parts being broken away.

The lubricator pump illustrated, except as already noted, and hereinafter more specifically described, may be assumed to be of the general type known to the trade as the Pennsylvania Lines West Lubricator extended through the oil well and mounted in suitable bearings on the casing. This shaft is adapted to be rotated in any suitable way, and when applied to a locomotive Wlll, as is customary, be driven at a speed proportionate to the speed rotation of the enginedrive wheels' Inside of the oil .well casing the shaft'6 is provided with a pump actuating cam 7 of the construction already generally indicated. This cam -7 is preferably a 360 degree cam, the active perimeter of which has constantly increasing radial distance from the axis of the shaft, that is, fon each successive degree of said cam, there is aconstant increasing radial distance from said y axis.

This cam 7 takes the place of an eccentric which is usually employed, and itis arranged to engage a cam lug 8 carried on the interior of an elliptical strap 9 that has vertically alined rigidly secured and preferably integrally formed upper and lower stems 10 and 11. The upper stem 10 works through and is guided by a suitable bearing on the top of the casing while the lower stem 11 works through the bottom of the casing and into a spring chamber 12, the lower end of which is closed by a plug 13. The stems 10 and 11 and yoke 9 constitute what, for convenience, may be designated as 5 a cam-actuated pump-actuating slide. A coiled spring 14 is compressed between the plug 13 and the lower endof the stem 11, and preferably a washer 15 is interposed between said spring and the said stem. The

spring chamber 12 is in communication with the oil well and through oil passages 16 that prevent oil from being ejected into said chamber. To hold the stems 10 and 11 against rotation and the yoke 9 always in the plane of the cam 7, the said stem may arranged to o erate two pumps that may deliver to di erent points, and hence, a,

ate the pump plunger, the pump punger T-head or cross bar 17 is secured to they upper end of the said stem 10, and to the upper ends of the plungers 18 of the two pumps. These pump plungers 18 work through pump cylinders 19 shown as formed integral with the top of the casing 4, and the lower ends thereof, communicate with oil chambers 20 to which oil is delivered from the oil well, through oil intake pipes 21, preferably equipped with the usual strainers 22 at their lower ends. The oil chambers 20 are connected by discharge conduits 23 to oil delivery pipes 24.. The usual check balls 25 and 26 control the inlet to chamber 20 and the discharge therefrom.

Except for the described important rela tion of actuating cam and cam actuating plunger or shaft, the features of the lubricator may be greatly varied as far as my present invention is concerned.

The operation of thelubricator pump is probably obvious from the foregoing description and statements made but may be summarized as follows:

Each step or degree of rotary movement of the cam 7, when said cam is rotated in the direction of the arrow marked thereon in Fig. 3, will impart to the pump rod or stem, and hence, to the pump plungers, an equal degree of oil delivery movement, and this is true throughout approximately 360 degrees of movement of said cam. The pumping action is started by the initial movement of the cam from all positions shown in Fig. 3 and continuous throughout approximately 360 degrees until the radially most outward portion of the cam operates upon and then passes beyond the cam lug 8, and thereupon the spring 14 will throw the pump actuating stem or shaft and the pump plungers back to their uppermost or most retracted positions, with almost instantaneous action. Inasmuch as the shaft 6 and cam 7 are slow moving elements, the; time interval during which the spring acts to thus retract the arts, is so inconsiderable as to be almost negligible. Thus, with a single cam, one or more pumps may be operated with an approximately constant continuous pumping action.

This pump actuating means has in fact been found not only highly eflicient and dur able, but comparatively of small cost.

It is, of course, understood that if a lubricator pump includes an eccentric to operthus operated will be given an operative or oil delivery movement through something less than 180 degrees, or, in other words, said pump plunger will deliver oil during less than 180 degrees of the movement of such eccentric, and hence, the oil delivery is intermittent.

A locomotive requires so little oil that itis difiicult to obtain positive regular hyeas es bricator must necessarily be sub'ected to,

especially in locomotive service. in the older types of lubricator pump ating devices, lost motion under service will reduce the amount of oil delivered and make the lubricator unreliable. With my present improved pump-actuating means, however, the little wear that takes place will not appreciably change the structure because the spring will carry the slide and the pump plungers up until the lug or gib 8 comes into contact with the cam, thereby automatically compensating for any lost motion produced by wear and tear of the parts.

The lubricator, while especially serviceable on locomotives, is not, of course, limited to that particular use, but it will be found serviceable in numerous other applications.

The practicability and utility of my improved lubricator, herein disclosed, has been demonstrated by the successful and extenoreover,

sive commercial sale and usage thereof in the United States. Because of its great simplicity and superior efiiciency, it has been rapidly supplanting all earlier forms of force feed lubricators on locomotives among the leading railways of the United States.

It will, of course, be understood that the 360 degree cam need not necessarily be in a plane perpendicular to the axis of rotation, but might be in any other disposition which would give the continuous positive oil delivery movement to the movable element of the pump throughout substantially 360 degrees of the cams rotation.

So far as I have been able to ascertain. I am the first to have provided any form of force feed lubricator, wherein a substantially continuous positive oil delivery is secured therefrom under the action of a singlereciprocating pump. In other words, my pump actuating mechanism, herein disclosed, is broadly new, affording a new mode of operation and a new result available from a single reciprocating pump.

Of course, it will be understood that what I have hereinbefore termed the pump ac tuating slide (to wit: the yoke 9 with its stems 10 and 11) is simply my preferred form of transmission device for transferring the motions produced by the cam 7 and its coiiperating retracting spring 14 to the movable element of the pump, and that, while this form is highly preferred for cofiperation with the particular form of cam 7 illustrated, because of the simplicity and compactness available therefrom, it must e actuunderstood that any other equivalent form of transmission device might be used.

movable element of the pump to the position from which it' was started by the mm, or, in other words, to yieldingl make the suction stroke of the pump wit a substantially instantaneous action.

What I claim is:

1. In a force feed lubricator, the combination with the movable element of a reciprocating oil pump, of a. pump actuating mechanism operative to impart positively to the movable element of said ump substantially continuous positive 011 delivery movements and to impart intermittently thereto substantially instantaneous yielding return or suction strokes, substantially as described.

2. In a force feed lubricator, the combination with the movable element of a reciprocating oil pump, of a pump actuating mechanism, including a rotary cam and cooperative yielding retracting means, which cam is operative throughout substantially 360 degrees of its rotation to impart positively to the movable element of said pump a substantially continuous oil delivery movement and to set said yieldin retracting means, under strain, and whic retracting means, when released by said cam, becomes operative to impart a substantially instantaneous yielding return or suction stroke to the movable element of said pump, substantially as described.

3. In a force feed lubricator, the combination with the movable element of a reciprocating pump, of a pump actuating mec anism including a rotary cam, cooperative yielding retracting means and a transmission device, which cam is operative throughout substantially 360 degrees of its rotation to impart positively to said transmission device and the movable element of said pump a substantially continuous oil delivery movement and to set said yielding retracting means under strain, and which retracting means, when released by said cam, becomes operative to impart a substantially instantaneous yielding return or suction stroke, through said transmission device, to the movable element of said pump, substantially as described.

4;. In a force feed lubricator, the combination with a reciprocatin pump, wherein the plunger is the movab e element, of a pump actuating mechanism, comprising a rotary cam, a cooperating retracting spring, and a transmission device, which cam has a camming surface of substantially 360 degrees continuous increase from its lowest to its highest point and is positively operative on said transmission device and pump plunger throughout substantially 360 degrees of itsrotation to impart to said pump plunger a substantially continuous oil delivery movement and also serves to set said retracting spring under increased tension, and which spring, when released by said cam, becomes operative through said trans-- mission device to impart a substantially instantaneous yielding return or suction stroke to said pump plunger, substantially as described.

5. In a force feed lubricator, the combination with a reciprocatin pump, wherein the plunger is the movab eelement, of a pump actuating mechanism, comprising a rotary cam, a cooperative retracting sprlng, and a transmission device which cam has a peripheral cam surface of substantially 360 degrees continuous increase from its lowest to its highest point, and which transmission device is in the form of a yoke embracing said cam and provided with a'lug for contacting with the camming surface thereof and which yoke is provided with stems extended in opposite directions through suitable guides, one of which stems takes hold of sald pum plunger, and the other of which is sub ect to said retracting spring,

' and which parts cooperate to afford a substantially continuous oil delivery movement to said um-p plunger and 'an mtermittent substantially instantaneous yielding return or suction stroke to said pump plunger, substantially as described .6. In a force feed lubricator a' reciproeating oil pump having in combination a reciprocating element and means for reciprocating said element including a rotating shaft, said means comprising .means for positively moving said reciprocating element through its discharge stroke for substantially 360 degrees rotation of said shaft, and means for moving said element through its return stroke substantially instantaneously.

In testimon whereof I aflix my signature in presence 0 two witnesses. 

